Warren woman battles ITC, trees cut down

Marilyn Lienau couldn’t bear to watch more than a dozen men cutting down five trees that she and her late husband planted at their home in the early 1980s.

The 70-year-old Warren woman considered standing in the way but remained inside her Warren house, angry that a judge approved the removal of the trees by International Transmission Co. within a 60-foot easement.

“They gave me a notice and said I would go to jail if I tried to stop them,” Lienau said. “Maybe I should have went to jail.”

ITC, the firm that owns the power lines and towers in a corridor that bisects several communities in Macomb County from Warren to Washington Township, has another easement where its lines run above and next to Lienau’s home on Adams Drive, near 14 Mile and Schoenherr roads.

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In April, the firm filed a lawsuit against her in Macomb County Circuit Court to get access to her property to remove the trees. In early May, a judge requested photos showing the affected area. On May 16, Visiting Judge Thomas Brookover entered a default judgment in favor of ITC because Lienau did not appear in court.

Lienau said she was unaware of the hearing and that her attorney, Jerry Karpinski, was hospitalized and never received a notice. She said her lawyer was unaware of the judge’s decision until the opposing attorney phoned him.

“(ITC) told the judge the trees are a fire hazard if the wires arc and if (wires) are any lower than they are now,” said Ali Schukraft, the fianceé of Lienau’s son, Eric. “The only way they would touch the lines is if we had a really a massive storm come through and take them down, but that could happen to any tree.”

Days after the trees were cut, some of the large toppled trunks remained on the ground.

It’s not Lienau’s first dispute with ITC.

Four years ago, the company cut approximately 20 trees at her home, including fruit trees and “dwarf” trees that she said would have never grown tall enough to threaten the power lines. Lienau said the company wanted to cut more at the time, but she refused.

“These people are tree haters,” said Lienau, who is a widow. She said she and her husband were aware of the easement when they bought the lot and built the 2,300-square-foot house in 1979. Now she wonders if the absence of trees and the stumps left behind will make it difficult for her to sell her home.

Detroit Edison, which previously owned the corridor, practiced tree trimming more than tree removal. ITC has taken a more stringent stance that it emphasizes is legal.

“ITC appreciates that tree removal can be a sensitive issue for property owners. The safety of homeowners and the reliability of the transmission system are our top priorities. We maintain vegetation within the corridor by removing incompatible vegetation because power outages are inconvenient, costly and potentially dangerous,” ITC spokesman Joe Kirik said in a prepared statement.

“In this instance, ITC is within its rights as set forth in the property utility easement. This was recently affirmed by a Macomb County Circuit Court judge. Earlier this week several large trees posing a threat to the transmission line were cut. Cleanup of the debris has not been completed due to interference by a person at the location.”

The transmission company has said federal vegetation management regulations that grew out of the August 2003 blackout necessitated its policy change. Power companies are threatened with fines of up to $1 million a day if outages are traced to poor vegetation management.

Removal instead of trimming has drawn the attention of local government officials, right up to U.S. Rep. Candice Miller and U.S. Sen. Carl Levin.

One of the largest public outcries occurred after ITC removed hundreds of trees along the Macomb Orchard Trail, a popular recreation path in Shelby and Washington townships located in the power line corridor.

To ward off potential litigation, ITC reached a settlement with Macomb County in 2011 in which the power company agreed to pay the county $500,000 to finance replanting of bushes and other greenery.

ITC previously prevailed in several court cases in other jurisdictions. As part of the agreement in Macomb, ITC received unfettered access to remove trees in the 85-foot-wide corridor.